. >> reporter: doreen diaz, the mother who inspired the movie says she tried for three years to work within the system to turn her daughter's school around but she was stonewalled. >> the superintendent at the time, i had gone to him with the issues and talked to him and his solution to me was only ever if you don't like the school or you don't like the teachers, you can change schools. >> reporter: she rallied other parents to enact a little known california law called the parent trigger law. if at least 50% of parents at a failing school sign a petition, they can take control and either bring in new staff, modify teacher contracts, convert the school into a charter school or shut down the school entirely. to successfully pull the trigger, doreen reached out to ben austin, founder of the education advocacy group parent revolution. >> it's not about these false choices that have gotten us into this mess in the first place. are you for charter schools or district schools? are you for teacher's unions. it's about giving parents some power fundamentally. >> reporter: with ben's help dor